since december of 2007. and the dow, which topped 14,000 in october of that same year before dropping to 6,500 in 2009, closed today at 13,895-- just 268 points short of an all- time high. so far this year the dow is up 6%, the best start to a year in a quarter century. it is a remarkable recovery. anthony mason is at the davos meeting of world bankers in switzerland and, anthony, what's behind the surge? >> reporter: well, scott, it's been fueled by the improving economic picture. new numbers out today show that new home sales jumped 20% last year. unemployment claims have been falling steadily. all that has ordinary investors who fled the market in fear five years ago now jumping back in. look what's happened. in the past two weeks, nearly $15 billion has poured into

stock mutual funds. that's the largest inflow since 2001. now, here in davos, nearly all of the bankers and business leaders that i've been talking to are more optimistic about the u.s. economy. here's what ken frazer, c.e.o. of the pharmaceutical giant merck, had to say. >> i think the u.s. economy is poised to take off. i think it's been through some tough times. i think it's the strongest economy in the world. i think the big challenge for us is to come up with long-term solutions to the debt and deficit situation that will create greater certainty for people to make investments. >> reporter: the c.e.o. of j.p. morgan chase, jamie dimon, said here in davos that he thinks the table is set now for strong economic growth in the u.s. the c.e.o. of coca-cola told me here "we're still walking on ice" but if his words "everyone now believes the ice is going to hold." >> pelley: but, anthony, the last financial catastrophe was

because a bubble burst. and what are the chances this is a bubble in the stock market? >> reporter: well, i think scott, some people are concerned the market may be getting a little ahead of itself here, that ordinary investors are rushing back in. but it is fueled by some very encouraging economic news and we'll get another barometer of where we are next week. on wednesday, the g.d.p. number comes out. friday we get the latest jobless claims. >> pelley: anthony will be back from davos in just a few minutes. anthony, thank you very much. well, the last time that barack obama and hillary clinton sat down together to answer questions it was in a debate in the middle of a fight for the democratic presidential nomination. they were at each other's throats. well, today just days away from the end of her term as secretary of state, they sat down again together to answer questions. this time from steve kroft of "60 minutes." the joint interview, apparently, was the president's idea. >> reporter: why did you want to do this together? a joint interview. >> well, the main thing is i

just wanted to have a chance to publicly say that you can because i think hillary will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we've had. it has been a great collaboration over the last four years. i'm going to miss her. i wish she was sticking around but she has logged in so many miles i can't begrudge her to want to take it easy for a little bit. but i want the country to appreciate just what an extraordinary role she's played during the course of my administration and a lot of the successes we've had internationally because of her hard work. >> a few years ago it would have been seen as improbable because we had that very long, hard primary campaign. but, you know, i've gone around the world on behalf of the president and our country and one of the things that i say to people-- because i think it helps them understand-- i say, look, in politics and in

democracy sometimes you win elections; sometimes you lose elections. and i worked very hard but i lost and then president obama asked me to be secretary of state and i said yes and why did he ask me and why did i say yes? because we both love our country. >> pelley: steve also asked whether this joint interview was an endorsement. you'll hear that and the rest of the president and the secretary this sunday on "60 minutes." the dual interview was so unusual we just had to bring in bob schieffer, our chief washington correspondent and anchor of "face the nation." bob, what do you think? >> schieffer: well (laughs) other than to take the president at his word, anything i would offer as to why they decided to do this would be just pure speculation. but it's very unusual for the president, any president, to say i want to do an interview but i want to bring a friend. i'm sure steve must have been surprised. presidents generally don't want to share the spotlight with anybody. but the president, you heard him, said he wanted to say thanks, that's sort of sweet.

secretary clinton said it showed a nice thing about democracy that was kind of nice. it's bound, though, to generate a lot of questions. is this one step short of endorsing her to replace him next time? was it payback for that speech her husband made at the democratic convention? we're not going to get any answers to those questions for sure. but one thing that is for sure scott, one definition of news is anything out of the ordinary. so this definitely qualifies as news. >> pelley: it was. bob, thank you very much. don't miss bob's "face the nation" on sunday. his guests will include democratic senator dianne feinstein of california talking about her bill to ban assault weapons. "face the nation" on sunday. you know, you probably noticed the secretary was wearing glasses instead of her usual contact lenses. her spokesman says that's to help her with lingering issues from her concussion. notice the vertical lines. we're told that those are to

correct double vision and with the glasses, the spokesman says, the secretary sees just fine. we've heard a lot this week about the major policy change coming to the u.s. military: women will soon be eligible to serve in combat units in jobs that have always been off limits before. we wondered what women veterans think of all of that and we asked david martin to find out. >> reporter: when she joined the army, christine stark wanted to be an officer in the infantry but had to settle for the military police. >> it was one of the few that was open to me back in the early '80s where i could actually lead troops and do what i wanted to do in the military. >> reporter: it was as close as ground combat as you could get. >> yes, sir, it was. >> reporter: she rose to colonel, getting shot at during two tours in afghanistan. but even as an m.p., her gender kept her being from being assigned to front line units. did you resent these restrictions? >> yeah, in a lot of ways i did.

i had been born and raised that i could do anything and then you know, to have someone tell me just because of my gender i couldn't have certain positions. >> reporter: when defense secretary panetta and joint chiefs chairman dempsey signs an order ending the ban on women in ground combat it came too late for her career but was a triumph nevertheless. is there a sisterhood out there in the army that's giving each other a high five now? >> there absolutely is. this has been a landmark decision. >> reporter: right now, it's only a piece of paper which will take years to implement. do you expect males in the military to be accepting of this? >> some will accept it and some will not. some will be resistant. >> reporter: some people are going to think, well, there goes standards. >> yeah. i think there will be some of that. but i think it -- it's only a matter of time before women just prove them wrong. >> reporter: do you have any doubts about women being able to succeed in combat arms?

>> no. i don't have any doubts. >> reporter: do you think a lot of women are going to line up to join combat arms? >> no. (laughs) i think there will be some that want that opportunity and many that don't. there's many males that don't sign up for the combat arms. >> reporter: scott, here's one measure the effect the combat ban has had on the careers of women in the army. women make up 14% of the army but only 7% of the generals. >> pelley: big changes ahead. david, thanks very much. there were violent protests all over egypt today on the second anniversary of that uprising that brought down president mubarak. the protesters accuse the new president of betraying their democratic revolution with a power grab that put islamic fundamentalists in charge. at least four protesters were killed when they fought with the police. hundreds were hurt.

french troops are on the move tonight in mali recapturing towns from islamic terrorists. mali is in north africa and it's become a new center for terrorism. fighters linked to al qaeda have overrun much of the north, including gao. thousands have fled south to escape. elizabeth palmer is in mali and met some of the refugees. >> reporter: against all odds, the beat goes on 600 miles from home. but if moussa mega and his band carried on like this in their native city of gao they'd have been arrested or worse by the islamic militants who took over ten months ago. so they fled to safety in the south. we have heard that the extremists, rebels who have come to gao will not let you play. "that's right" he told me. "they said it was unislamic." how did they stop you? "they would break our instruments" he said "and whip

us bitterly in public." the militants who control large parts of northern mali rule by terror. this cell phone video shows them in gao flogging a man found guilty of adultery and drinking alcohol. tata, the band's star dancer, is also a teacher. she told us gao was dangerous for women, too. riding with a man on a motorcycle or going out alone can mean arrest and rape. the local consensus is that as few as 400 extremists ruled gao's population of more than 100,000 with violence. here a thief is about to have his hand amputated after sentencing in an extremist court. but intimidation and cruelty like this is not part of northern mali's tradition. dance, humor, and joyful rhythms are. moussa mega's band is making

music even in exile but every one of them is counting the days when they can head for home. elizabeth palmer, cbs news central mali. >> pelley: can bill gates wipe out diseases killing children? and a new winter storm is on the way when the "cbs evening news" continues. continues. cer ] how do you make 70,000 trades a second... ♪ ♪ reach one customer at a time? ♪ ♪ or help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪ ♪ whatever your business challenge dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. ♪ ♪ this is amazing, how did you find us? i thought we might be related,

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>> pelley: the world's largest private charity is the bill and melinda gates foundation. the founder and his wife are spending billions of dollars to eradicate diseases overseas and reform education here in the u.s. gates is attending the world economic forum in davos, switzerland which every year attracts the globe's top leaders. anthony mason talked to gates today about the progress that he's making against diseases that kill children by the millions. >> reporter: you're a regular here at davos. what's the value in coming here for you? >> there's great opportunity to meet with corporate leaders, government leaders, talk about the foundation's partnership with them. i get up to date and i'd have to fly a lot of places to do the equivalent. >> reporter: in the corridors and meeting rooms in davos, the world's most prominent philanthropist is keeping up his campaign to help the poorest children of the world. a top priority of the bill and melinda gates foundation has

been to eradicate polio. the gates have committed a billion dollars to fighting the disease and almost beaten it. >> we started with 400,000 kids a year being paralyzed and now less than 250,000. so we're pretty close. >> reporter: what's the next mountain to climb here? >> well, the -- the figure we always look at is reducing the number of children under five who die. and that was 12 million back in 1990, it's under seven million now. so we're -- by 2015 we will have cut it in half. and then the goal is to cut it in half again in the next 15 years. >> reporter: are you getting the money that you need? are governments, given the economic climate, coming forward? >> well, it really hangs in the balance because budgets are tighter than ever. >> reporter: there's never enough money, is there? >> that's right.

whether it's funding scientists to create new inventions or getting them out there. every time i visit i say i wish we could move faster. >> reporter: the scope of gates' efforts is truly monumental. the world's largest private philanthropy, his foundation has paid out $25 billion in grants since it was founded. >> pelley: anthony mason at the world economic forum in davos. anthony, thanks. it may soon be more difficult to get a prescription for vicodin and similar painkillers. an f.d.a. advisory panel today recommended new restrictions on prescriptions and refills because so many patients become addicted. the u.s. anti-doping agency is giving lance armstrong an ultimatum, and that story is next. th next. the usual, bob? not today. [ male announcer ] bob has afib: atrial fibrillation not caused by a heart valve problem a condition that puts him at greater risk for a stroke. [ gps ] turn left. i don't think so. [ male announcer ] for years, bob took warfarin and made a monthly trip to the clinic to get his blood

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>> pelley: "60 minutes" is reporting that the u.s. anti-doping agency has given lance armstrong until february 5 to testify under oath. if he declines, his lifetime ban if sports will be irreversible. last week, in an interview with oprah winfrey, armstrong admitted to doping. but the head of the u.s. anti-doping agency, travis tygart, told us armstrong didn't tell the whole truth in the interview. tygart holds the keys to any reduction in armstrong's lifetime ban and in an interview for sunday's "60 minutes" we asked him about armstrong's talk show confession. you know, at one point in the interview he said that he was curious about the definition of the word "cheater" and he looked it up in the dictionary and

didn't think it necessarily applied to him. >> it's amazing. i mean, scott, you could go to almost any kindergarten in this country or, frankly, around the world and find kids playing tag or four square and ask them what cheating is and every one of them will tell you it's breaking the rules of the game. no real athlete has to look up the definition of cheating and it's offensive to clean athletes out there working hard to play by the rules that apply to their sport. >> pelley: he suggested that cycling in those years was a level playing field because everyone did it. he wasn't doing anything special. >> it's just simply not true. the access they had to inside information, to how the tests work, what tests went in place at what time, special access to the laboratory, he was the one that -- he was on an entirely different playing field than all the other athletes even if you assume all the other athletes

had access to some doping products. >> pelley: tygart told us armstrong will have to agree to tell all and testify against others if his ban is to be shortened. you can see the rest of tygart's interview this sunday on "60 minutes." the east coast is being hit tonight with a new round of winter weather. it's snowing in the mid-atlantic states, an icy mix is falling in the carolinas, and overnight chicago finally got some snow, just over an inch. it had not snowed that much in 335 days-- a record for the windy city. we don't know which came first but we can tell you what comes last. the chicken and the egg. next. next. the boys use capital one venture miles for their annual football trip. that's double miles you can actually use. tragically, their buddy got sacked by blackouts. but it's our tradition!

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to current and former military members and their families. [ laughs ] dad! dad! [ applause ] [ male announcer ] life brings obstacles. usaa brings retirement advice. call or visit us online. we're ready to help. learn more with our free usaa retirement guide. call 877-242-usaa. our investigation caught some eateries doing with the cash. next weather talent appears at wx center with generic pinpoint filling monitor then we take special >> pelley: we end tonight with we end tonight with old- fashioned american ingenuity. when her family got into financial trouble, a young girl hatched a rescue plan and built quite a nest egg. steve hartman met her "on the road." >> reporter: on this clear colorado morning, the sun shines kindly on 13-year-old shelby grebenc. it admires her red hair and

warms her way to school, a professional courtesy perhaps for this fellow ray of light who has seen her share of dark times. >> it was sad, it was really sad. >> reporter: a few years ago, shelby's mother, nancy, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. m.s. isn't a death sentence, but nancy's case for a while, it might as well have been. >> she couldn't walk. she couldn't feed herself. >> reporter: that bad? >> yeah. it was pretty much dead on the couch. >> i couldn't get out of bed. >> and she ended up in a nursing home, and man, it was -- it was tough. >> reporter: shelby's dad, john michael, works at a water treatment plant outside denver. her mom was a pharmacist. they made pretty good money, but the nursing home bills alone were bankrupting the couple. shelby, of course, was told none of this but knew all of it. >> because i could see how sad he was and i decided to help him. >> i says, well, okay, see what you can do. i just never thought she would take it to this level. >> reporter: what shelby did

was basically start farming. at the age of nine, she got a loan from her grandma and bought lots of chickens. >> i have 135, about. >> reporter: nevermind she didn't come from a farming family. nevermind the 50-pound feed bags. shelby was determined to tackle this. >> come on, girls. >> reporter: she had run the numbers and figured there was money in eggs if you did it right. >> thank you. >> reporter: which she did. shelby became the youngest farmer in america to win the animal welfare seal of approval, which basically means her chickens have the life. >> i have to make sure chickens get out, they get to eat bugs, they get to be chickens. >> reporter: pair that compassion with home delivery, and you have yourself a winning business model. >> oh, gosh, those are great. >> reporter: her company makes about $15,000 a year. where would you have been without her help? >> i think we would have been homeless. there's just -- oh. we would have lost it. she kept the wolf away from the door.

so -- >> reporter: today nancy is a little better as are the family finances. shelby can now put all the profits into a college fund although, should the need arise, she says family remains her first priority. and that's why whether she stays in farming or not, shelby grebenc will always be one good egg. steve hartman, "on the road" in denver. >> and that's the "cbs evening news" for tonight. for all of us at cbs news all around the world, i'm scott pelley. i'll see you sunday on "60 minutes." good night. captions by: caption colorado comments@captioncolorado.com >> your realtime captioner: linda marie macdonald and good evening, i'm ken bastida. >> i'm julie watts. allen and elizabeth are off tonight. we begin with breaking news. 49ers receiver michael crabtree will not be facing charges related to sexual assault. that word coming from the san francisco district attorney's office moments ago. earlier this month a woman

accused crabtree of assaulting her at the "w" hotel in san francisco. police have completed their investigation and they filed the case to the d.a. moments ago, d.a. george gascon said, following a review of all the evidence, my office has determined that no charges will be filed against michael crabtree at this time." san francisco police are gearing up for a citywide super bowl party. and while they prepare for what could be a rowdy post-game, coach harbaugh is keeping his focus on the here and now. we have team coverage tonight starting with cbs 5 reporter len ramirez in santa clara. len. >> reporter: exactly right, ken. as the 49ers get ready to leave for new orleans, it seems there aren't enough hours in the day for everything that needs to be done for the team and right in the middle of it all is coach jim harbaugh, a hardman to catch up with. bursting into the greatness of the super bowl spotlight, 49ers coach jim harbaugh hustled up

to the mic for yet another pre- game press conference. it was a quick wide ranging session that can make your head spin. >> he is really hitting the ball well. i did like that. you on a curfew? now is not really the time for all that kind of talk. could you start that again? just keeps catching and catching and catching the ball. will we use vern davis in the quarterback game? quarterback will throw it to the open guy. i enjoy these sessions. >> reporter: he asked his own questions to raiders super bowl winning coach john madden on kcbs radio this morning. >> what else can you tell me, coach what advice can you tell me first-time coach going to the super bowl? well, you're a heck of a lot better coach than i was. i just know that you haven't done anything yet, and i think the -- i think that the team that celebrates having gotten there the most usually loses a little focus. >> reporter: sage advice from one who's been there, but focus does no